


Blessed Be Our Kiss

by Ravenmaster



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Confessions, Definitely Very Sappy, First Kiss, M/M, Matchmaking Aliens, just plain fluff, maybe slightly OOC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-01-14
Packaged: 2019-03-04 13:13:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13365438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ravenmaster/pseuds/Ravenmaster
Summary: There is no better way to celebrate successful negotiations than a with good party, nice drinks, and endlessly nosy natives that like romance gossip with the Captain of the USS Enterprise.The Pyronians know how to celebrate.





	Blessed Be Our Kiss

**Author's Note:**

> Warning beforehand: it's been a while since I've last written, and I wanted to do something simple. So here's something feel-good and simple. I hope you'll enjoy, and comments are alwaysalwaysalways welcome!

When it came to alien people and convincing them to join the Federation, Jim had rather quickly learned a few things. This was one of the more important things:

Sometimes, people hated the idea immediately and responded, well, violently. He wasn’t fond of those moments.

Sometimes, people would take their offer into consideration and then drag through days and days of negotiations until Jim felt like leaping off a cliff. He wasn’t fond of those moments, either.

And them sometimes, when the planets aligned themselves just right and all the deities in the universe were in a good mood - sometimes, they would not only accept their offer, but celebrate it as well, turning a diplomatic mission into an impromptu shore leave for the crew.

Honestly? Jim fucking loved those moments.

The Pyronian people had quickly shown that they fell into the last category. They were a curious bunch, clearly humanoid, but with very distinct, silvery glittering, almost translucent skin, four delicate, long fingers on each hand (no thumbs - still two hands each, though), and they were all about a head taller than Jim was. Their robes were rather plain, all various shades of brown - even the Queen was not much more fashionable, but they were very polite and cheerful, if not a little nosy.

“It joys us very much to have reached such a satisfying agreement so quickly,” the Queen commented, after the negotiations had finished. “Captain Kirk, we would like to invite you and your crew at sundown for a celebration of the new future of Pyronia.” The broad smile on her face revealed a row of white, rounded teeth, and the skin around her eyes seemed to twinkle even more. “It would be our honor.”

It didn’t take much more than that; it was a beautiful planet, their hosts were not only civil but genuinely very likable, and the crew really could use a shore leave just about now. So, when Jim beamed back down onto the planet’s surface a few hours later after a shower and a change of clothes, along with the rest of the crew, he was rather positive that whatever the Pyronians had planned for them, it would be fine.

“The Pyronian people apparently take their celebrations rather seriously,” Spock observed behind him, as they were led to the grand gardens in front of Queen Fash’eq’s palace, where a whole abundance of technicolor plants and trees were blooming. The colors were so vibrant and loud, that it almost looked funny, if it hadn’t been breathtaking in the violet light of the setting sun instead.

Spock was right. In the middle of the garden, there was a large, open field of snow-white, clover-like plants, where a whole bunch of brown wearing people were chit-chatting with sparkling smiles on their faces and drinks in their hands that pulsed light on the same beat as the music that lowly rolled over the field, soft but definitely noticeable. It didn’t sound half-bad, actually. “They really outdid themselves,” Jim agreed, and he could feel his excitement bubble up already. “I bet you ten credits that Sulu is going to spend the entire night flailing over those plants.”

“Vulcans do not gamble,” Spock replied, but it didn’t affect Jim’s grin one bit.

The two Pyronians that had led Jim and his crew to the field, disappeared in the crowd, right when most of the crew fanned out and started to mingle. For a moment, Jim wasn’t really sure what to do, until a tall, positively beaming person in a brown toga stepped forward and offered him one of the pulsing drinks.

Yeah. Everything got a little, tiny bit hazy after that.

It was nice, though, even if the ground under his feet felt a little floaty, sometimes. The music was nice, the honey-like scent of the air was nice, and the people - God, the people, they were so nice.  
Even, you know, when like six of them had sort of cornered Jim against an outrageously orange tree with blue, snotty leaves and were all peering up at him with large, curious eyes.

“Are you married?” the shortest one of the bunch asked. Her voice sounded like bubbles, but good bubbles. Bubbles that Jim could understand, at least. 

His head felt floaty. “Nope,” he replied. “No ring on my finger.”

“Ring?” someone else repeated, clearly intrigued. Jim couldn’t quite determine whether they were male or female; they all kind of looked the same, to be honest. Maybe gender wasn’t even a thing, here. “Is that a native idiom?”

They were kind of amusing, really, all big-eyed and puppy-like. Except puppies didn’t sparkle. (Puppies also did not make out with Yeoman Rand a few meters ahead behind a gold-speckled bush, Jim vaguely noted, but that was none of his business. Good for her, though.) “No, it’s - it’s a Human tradition to exchange rings when two people get married.” Then, after a beat of thought, he added: “At least it is on parts of the Earth. I think there are other customs to that as well.”

“Curious,” muttered the shortest one, again. Apparently she was the talker. (Or they. Or he. Were there genders? He should ask.) “And when more than two people get married?”

Jim frowned, leaning a little against the trunk of the tree, until he lowered himself against it to sit on the ground. All the Pyronians promptly followed, forming a little circle, with all eyes on Jim. It was kind of sweet. Reminded him of a storytelling circle around a campfire, or something, but without said campfire. “I, uh…” he started. “What?”

“Say three, or four, or perhaps seven individuals wish to get married,” the Pyronian to Jim’s left clarified. Deep, _deep_ voice. It almost surprised him that their voices could actually go that deep, compared to what he had heard from the Queen and the curious talker. “Do they all exchange rings? Is there an order to which partner’s ring belongs on which finger?”

Well then. Jim actually felt a laugh come up, although he wasn’t entirely sure why, and he was entirely sure that it was a bad idea to laugh at this moment, because if there was another thing he had very rapidly learned during this mission, it was that it was never a good idea to laugh at other cultures. “Uh, no. No, not really. Humans are predominantly monogamous,” he explained, trying to keep his cool, but it only took one look at all their expectant faces to let out a little giggle (giggle? Oh, Christ, good thing Bones was not around for that) anyway.

Much to his own amusement, the Pyronians immediately joined his giggle fit. As if they didn’t look enough like a gossiping group of school girls in their little storytelling circle just yet. 

“I mean, there are people with multiple partners on Earth,” he clarified, at least half sure that his face was kind of flushed by now. He felt like it needed to be said, at least, even if he didn’t have a lot of credibility in his happily intoxicated state. “We’re not at the point yet where they can all marry, though.”

Some of the glitter around the Pyronians’ eyes dimmed a little. Especially the short talker looked taken aback by that. “That is sad,” they muttered. (Probably safest to use neutral pronouns, just in case, Jim decided.)

Maybe it was the drink, maybe it was the fact that Jim really, _really_ liked these people so far, but it broke his heart a little to not see them shine as much. “It’s not all bad, though! Marriage on Earth is just a piece of paper and an administrative convenience. People can still be in a happy romantic relationship without that piece of paper.”

It wasn’t that simple, Jim knew it wasn’t, but at least it brightened their moods a little. They all nodded tentatively (or at least Jim thought they did; they bobbed their heads from shoulder to shoulder while staring at the dark purple night sky above), until the talker found something else to interrogate him about. “Does that mean it is also the norm on Earth to have sexual intercourse with one person at a time?”

Jim’s eyebrows shot up. “Excuse me?” he spluttered.

“Is it also the norm on Earth to have sexual relations with one person at a time?” the one on Jim’s left repeated patiently, and Jim wasn’t entirely sure why they thought it was somehow clearer if they repeated it word for word, but changed the word “intercourse” to “relations”.

Jim blinked a few times, not entirely sure if they were joking, until he looked at their curious, round-toothed smiles and reminded himself that oh, yeah, right, different cultures were different. (It was at times like these that he wondered what his fifth grade teacher would say about him if she knew that the “most intelligent child she had ever met” had logic like this.) “Yes. There are still exceptions, of course, but it is definitely the norm to only have one sexual partner at a time.”

“And Commander Spock is your current sexual partner,” the shortest one cheerfully concluded. The rest of them all hummed excitedly the moment they pronounced his name, accompanied by whispers of “yes, yes, clearly”.

Jim was baffled. Again. But now, like, really baffled. “What? No, no, it’s not like that.”

They all cocked their heads to one side. All to the same side, too. They really did look like puppies. “Is it not?” the deep-voiced Pyronian asked.

“We’re just friends,” Jim assured them, because they were. At least that was something he was one hundred percent certain of now - he and Spock could have wildly different opinions at times, but they had come to a point where not even that mattered anymore. They were a good team together, that was what mattered most.

Still, that kind of seemed to confuse the Pyronians. A lot. They all cocked their heads to the other side and whispered heatedly, not quite loud or clear enough for the Universal Translator to catch it, so all Jim heard was faint bubbly sounds.

Finally, the short talker spoke up again. “But your feelings towards Commander Spock are not platonic. We do not understand.”

Jim’s head started to feel a lot less woozy than before, and he wasn’t sure if this was a conversation he was willing to hold clear-headed. “They are,” he said firmly. “I assure you, nothing unprofessional is going on between my First Officer and myself.”

For all their alien nosiness, they did pick up on the defensive tone in his voice somehow, because one after one, they placed their four-fingered hands in their laps with their palms upwards, not quite the hands-in-the-air demonstration of harmlessness, but the gesture was clear enough. “It was not our intention to make you uncomfortable,” the bubbly babbler told him. “It is a time of festivities, not discomfort.”

Jim nodded, but there was still way more tension in his body now than there had been before. The world was starting to become rather steady and clear around him again, right when he felt he could really use a drink. “Honest mistake,” he brushed it off, finding his smile again. They were right. Time of festivities. He was supposed to have fun, damnit, not defending his relationship status. Time for a different topic.

At least, that was what he thought. One Pyronian, more at the back, apparently hadn’t gotten the memo. “Our species very rarely makes such mistakes,” they said calmly, hands folded in their lap.  
Oh. For fuck’s sake. “Well, you did now, so -”

“That is not in its entirety true, Tean’eq,” the deep-voiced Pyronian argued. “Our gift lies with attraction, not seeing the definition of the relationship.”

That one from before - Tean’eq, apparently - cocked their head to the side. “Apologies. We were unclear. You and your Commander harbor romantic feelings for each other, then,” they concluded, their tone completely matter-of-factly. 

Jim’s jaw was somewhere on the floor. “What?”

“We are mildly telepathic as a species,” Tean’eq explained.

Jim nodded. At least that sounded familiar. “Your Queen mentioned it, yes.”

“Did she explain in what form?” the talker babbled (bubbled? Bubbled sounded more accurate).

“Eh, no. Not really.”

The bubbly talker beamed, and the glitters around their eyes glimmered a little more brightly. “The telepathy is rather shallow, compared to Commander Spock’s abilities - all we are able to do is sense the level of emotional or sexual attraction between two individuals.”

Oh. Well then. “What purpose does it serve?” Jim found himself asking, before he even knew what he was doing. This was not a conversation he even wanted to be having. “I mean, is there a useful purpose to be able to sense that when it concerns two other people, not yourself?”

They all blinked at him as if he was talking gibberish. “Well, of course,” Tean’eq replied. “Attraction between all individuals is of equal importance in a polygamous society. It is highly likely that marriages will strand when there isn’t one hundred percent clarity about the feelings between everyone involved. It is the foundation of our very society.”

Oh. For some reason, Jim’s chest felt a little tight. “I see. Well, I can tell you that we cherish each other and the friendship we have, but there are no… other feelings involved,” he said, hoping that his chest would feel better - and it did, for about fifteen seconds, until the immediate hushed whispers stopped again and all eyes were on him.

“Is it against Starfleet regulations for officers to be attracted to one another?” the bubbly-voiced one asked, and Jim was pretty sure he could detect some wariness in their voice.

It wasn’t a far stretch to imagine why, when that attraction was - in their own words - the foundation of their society. “No, it’s not. Attraction is not something you can help.”

“Then why is it necessary to lie?” Tean’eq pressed on. Christ, they were relentless. 

“I’m not lying.” Jim realised immediately that the response had been too quick, too defensive. That realisation was only confirmed when they all cocked their heads in a way that was apparently universal for “yeah, we’re not buying that shit”.

After a beat of silence that dragged on for just a moment too long, Jim felt something inside of him crumble and a wave of resignation flooded over him. “It’s just simpler not to be attracted to a crew member. It complicates working relationships.”

“How does mutual attraction complicate working relationships? Does it not help in making the relationship work?” muttered the shortest one, very clearly confused.

Well. “I think the translator might have messed that up, sorry.” Jim cleared his throat and happily tried not to think too much about any of this. “I was more talking about a _professional_ relation-”

“Captain.”

Jim snapped his head up, making the world spin and his heart race for a moment, before he very clearly distinguished a Spock-shaped figure. The spinning stopped. The heart racing did not. “Oh, hey. Are you having fun?”

Spock blinked once, twice. “Not in the same sense as you, I believe. Captain, can I speak with you?”

“Oh.” What was happening? “Of course, yeah. Is it - is it okay to touch the trees? They’re not sacred or poisonous?”

The Pyronian’s glitters seemed to up their glittertencity. “The trees are safe,” Bubbles said. “How do Humans show love?”

The question came about halfway through climbing back onto his legs, and Jim froze, half squatting, his cheeks slowly turning red as about a thousand different images came to mind. “We have many ways,” he heard the diplomat in him say. “But I think kissing is the most common one.”

He didn’t look at Spock. He couldn’t look at Spock.

“How does kissing work?” pushed Bubbles, their grin all round teeth and excitement.

Even with his gaze firmly fixed on his own clothes as he patted them down, he could just sense Spock tilting his head at the question. “We, uh. Humans press their lips to the other person’s lips, that’s a kiss. Sometimes they do some other things, but that’s the basics? I think?”

“Then blessed be your lips!” called out a deep, rumbling voice. “And blessed be your kiss!”

It took about five more seconds of cheerful bubble sounds and chattering of teeth that Jim could only assume was their version of an applause before he found the balls to get away from the tree and walk towards Spock again. “So.” He cleared his throat. “You wanted to talk?”

When he looked up, Spock wasn’t looking at him, just straight ahead, to a less well-lit section of what just looked like a huge garden. His face looked completely impassive, but by now, Jim knew pretty well that the less he saw, the more there was. 

“I would prefer to speak in private,” he said, and he started walking in a murderous pace. After two startled seconds, Jim had to jog to keep up with him. 

Spock seemed to know what he was doing, though. After two minutes of what he considered to be light cardio, they had reached some sort of lake; ink black in the dark purple of the night, with the moons so clearly reflected in it that it almost seemed like a mirror. 

Technicolor creatures were floating about a foot over the surface, looking like some sort of mix between a butterfly and a seahorse. Around the sides, long, overgrown flowers bobbed up and down in a gentle, warm breeze.

It was gorgeous.

He came to stand at Spock’s side, just watching. Taking it in. He couldn’t hear the music here anymore, or the people, or the party. Just this. Peaceful. Quiet.

Until it wasn’t. “The natives informed me of your attraction towards me.”

A shot of nervous adrenaline was pumped through Jim’s veins. “Oh,” he said, because what could he say? Agreeing sounded like a bad idea. Insulting their hosts by lying and denying it also didn’t sound that good.

But clearly, ‘oh’ wasn’t what Spock was looking for. It remained silent.

He had to ask something, right? He had to say something. His palms were honestly _itching_ to do something. The silence was just too much, it was -

“They’re right,” he said, too loudly, too quickly, startling some of the closer butterflying seahorses, but it was out. “I am. Attracted to you. That way. They’re right, they got it spot on.”

For a few seconds, nothing happened. Then, the frozen seahorses started air floating again, like nothing had happened.

And Spock just stood there, like nothing had happened. Face of a statue. Not even looking at him, not even reacting, not even -

Oh.

Maybe ‘oh’ was the right word after all.

“You’re holding my hand.”

“Correct.”

Jim felt his heartbeat speed up. This time, when he looked up from the lake again, Spock was looking at him - brown eyes crinkled up in that half-smile that he loved so much, making the happiness in his human eyes glitter more than the actual glitters of the Pyronians ever could. His breathing was slightly quicker than normal. His gaze kept flicking from one eye to the other.

Spock was _nervous_. Gorgeous, in this light, in this warmth, in this world - but so nervous, still. Almost delicate.

Jim gently squeezed Spock’s hand, and felt something bloom in his chest at the sharp, startled intake of breath he got at that. “So I take it that the Pyronians were right about the idea that this attraction is mutual?”

Spock cleared his throat, and Jim felt a rush of affection for how unmistakably Human that was. “Affirmative.”

Affirmative. It was almost ridiculous, discussing this like a bunch of fourth graders with “do you like me? Yes/No - circle which is true” notes in class, yet it made Jim’s head spin a little. This was _Spock_. This was his warm hand gently wrapped around his own, this was his thumb stroking his wrist, and it was the best thing about this whole evening, if Jim was being honest. Even if it turned out to be some really overwhelmingly nice dream, Jim could be happy savoring the idea of this feeling.

He was pretty sure he couldn’t have dreamed this up, though. 

Jim’s gaze flicked down from Spock’s eyes to his lips, then back up again. They were closer, now. Much closer, and he definitely didn’t mind. “Spock. Can I kiss you?”

That was a yes or no question. Even if Spock felt just as completely distracted right now as Jim did, that should’ve been an easy one. Instead, he replied: “You already are.”

Jim frowned. What? He almost took a step backwards, too, when Spock’s other hand came to lie on his bicep, pulled him in, and -

Oh.

Spock’s lips were so warm. So _soft_.

They felt like a thousand vibrantly coloured seahorses buried deep in Jim’s chest flew straight out, into the purple night sky, leaving Jim ripped open at the seems, bleeding, _elated_. Spock was kissing him. _Spock was kissing him._

He barely had time to respond, barely had time to get his brain back in gear before Spock pulled away again, leaving a tingling sensation in his lips and his stomach. “Wow.”

He could’ve sworn that the corners of Spock’s lips curled up a bit. “Indeed.”

Jim blinked owlishly, once, twice, three times. “I mean…” What was he even supposed to say? That it felt amazing? That he wanted to do it again? 

“I mean, I mean technically, we kissed after you said we were already kissing, so we weren’t already kissing.”

What?

Spock didn’t seem as thrown off by it as Jim himself was. He simply mini-smiled a bit more, and his voice wavered a bit when he spoke. “Vulcans do not kiss with their lips.”

Jim felt a pang of confusion and worry swirl around in his stomach. “But you just -”

“We do not predominantly kiss like that,” Spock clarified. “Not with our lips.”

Honestly, Jim’s mouth was already open to respond when he felt a small squeeze of fingers around his hand, causing a little electric thrill to go through him.

Then it clicked.

“Oh.” He brought in a shaky, nervous, happy breath of sweet, Pyronian air, and smiled. “Then blessed be our hands, Mr. Spock.”

Spock swept his thumb across the pulse point in his wrist, and quickly pressed his lips against Jim’s one more time. “And blessed be our kiss.”


End file.
